Musk enrolled at Queens University in 1990, where he studied for
two years before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania.
There, he spent three years getting a bachelor of Science degree
in physics and one in Economics, graduating in 1995.

Most college graduates in those days had heads full of dreams of
grandeur and world-changing innovations. Musk was just the same,
he told Tyson in the podcast.

When you are starting out in college, in your freshman and
sophomore year, you have these sort of sophomoric philosophical
wanderings. And I tried to think of ok, what are the things, that
seem to me that would most affect the future of humanity?

There were really five things, three of which that I thought
would be interesting to be involved in. And the three that I
thought would definitely be positive: theinternet, sustainable energy —
both production and consumption, and space
exploration, more specifically the extension of life
beyond Earth.

Though I never thought I would actually be involved in that, it
was something I'd thought would be important in the abstract. But
not something I would ever have an option to be involved in.

The fourth one was artificial intelligence and
the fifth one was rewriting human genetics.

These are just the five things I thought would most affect the
future of humanity.

Musk has been involved in three of these industries, so far.

First, he made millions from his involvement in online payment
company PayPal.

He's also Chairman of SolarCity, a company created by his cousins
Peter and Lyndon Rive. Solar City provides energy services by
selling and leasing solar panels to provide sustainable
energy to home and business owners.

Beyond all those accomplishments, Musk also dove headfirst into
the one goal he didn't think he'd be involved in: space
exploration.

In 2002 — just 7 years after he finished university — he founded
Space Exploration Technologies, commonly called SpaceX, using
$100 million of his own money from selling PayPal to Ebay. The
mission? To build a human colony on Mars.

In 2010, SpaceX became the first privately funded company to
successfully launch a spacecraft, called the Dragon capsule, have
it orbit the Earth, and recover it after the flight. Later,
SpaceX became the world's first private company to send a
spacecraft (that same one — the Dragon) to the International Space Station in
2012. Since then they have successfully run several more cargo
missions to the space station for NASA.

They are currently working on making their rockets reusable — an
incredible accomplishment that would cut space travel costs
drastically. They also have plans for a Mars mission, to set up
an
off-Earth colony of humans to do precisely what Musk wanted —
the extension of life beyond Earth. SpaceX will reportedly
unveil their "Mars Colonizing Transporter" to do just that
later this year.